Resuming my review of the Discovery Channel Project Earth series with the episode called Brighter World, where the Discovery Channel team attempts to help John Latham and Stephen Salter realize their dream of building a fleet of 1500 cloud brightness enhancing remote control carbon neutral vessels. That shouldn't be any problem.
As before, I will summarize the program and then note any additional information found at the Discovery Channel website and from other sources. Brighter World: Part 1 Clouds consist of tiny water droplets that reflect sunlight back into space. According to John Latham, half of the sunlight striking oceanic clouds is returned to space. Thus, physicist Latham and engineer Stephen Salter think that the Earth's temperature can be returned to normal (and what is that?) by increasing the reflectivity of clouds by 10%. This can be done, they say, by injecting 3.8 million tons of saltwater particles per day into the marine atmosphere using a fleet of up to 1500 remote controlled ships. These ships would spray out seawater particles beneath existing clouds with a fraction of the particles drifting their way up into the clouds. The saltwater particles act to redistribute the moisture, making much smaller water droplets than existed before. This increases the overall reflective surface area of the cloud water and reflects more sunlight back into space. To assist in developing the cloud ships, the three Discovery Channel experts that worked on previous episodes involving covering Greenland and aerial reforestation are once again called upon. CEO Kevin O'Leary will work on the logistics (spoiler alert: this time there are no helicopters, but there are airplanes and boats!), and eco-engineer Jennifer Languell will work on the design of the prototype cloud ship, while physicist Basil Singer will conduct scaled down cloud experiments to try to understand the physics of cloud whitening in order to design a way to do it. There are two primary objectives. Kevin and Jennifer will try to find the best type of ship to seed clouds with saltwater particles from sea level, while Basil will (1) design an experiment to show that man-made particles will rise high enough to brighten existing clouds and (2) determine the ideal size and concentration of these man-made particles. To begin the learning process, Basil wants to study the composition of an existing cloud. He travels to the waters off S. Africa where the type clouds of interest are said to commonly form. They are called marine stratocumulus and form in a layer 200-400 feet above the sea surface. They are considered ideal candidates for man-made whitening because they float over an endless source of saltwater particles. (Beats me why they literally had to go to the ends of the Earth to find marine stratocumulus. I thought these clouds were just about everywhere.) Basil flies through some of these clouds in an airplane equipped with a real-time laser particle counter in order to measure the size and number of the water droplets in the clouds so that he can determine how many additional droplets will need to be created to achieve the brightening effect. He finds that there are 500,000 water droplets per square inch in the clouds. To increase the reflectivity by 10%, however, requires four times more particles, not 10% more due to their small size. These particles must be no larger than 1/1600 the size of a grain of sand (not certain about that ratio-audio was unclear). Marine stratocumulus clouds, unlike other cumulus clouds that can rise to 6000 feet and produce rain as the cloud begins to fall apart, remain low, flat and stable, making them good sun reflectors. Latham says that while computer models indicate increasing cloud reflectivity is possible, no one has been able to produce a means of generating the spray of saltwater necessary to produce the proper size particles. The spray system must be able to atomize the water droplets to 1/25,000 of inch in diameter vs. 1/16 of an inch for a typical raindrop. In nature, only the ocean can produce such small particles of seawater. Latham says that the process of a wave breaking on the shore pushes air under the water, forming air bubbles and droplets about the size needed for cloud brighteness enhancement. Basil thinks he can duplicate the wave breaking process by jet impingement using a water cannon. This is a high powered pressure washer used to blast debris off the hulls of ships. He runs two such cannons with the flow of each directed against the other (the impingement) to see what size particles are produced. If the process works, it could be adapted for used on the cloud ships. The water cannons spray seawater through the nozzles at 2500 mph, generating enough power to cut through a 4-inch piece of wood in seconds. To see if the nozzle experiment produces small enough particles, another laser particle counter is used to measure them. If the experiment is successful, the collision of the two jets at a combined speed of 5000 mph should produce droplets less than 1 micron in diameter, the desired size. However, the test mostly produced particles of 40-50 microns, too heavy to be lifted by winds into the marine cloud layer. (It was my understanding that these water cannons use freshwater to keep the salts from blocking the nozzles. Would the use of freshwater make any difference in the size particles produced?) END PART 1 of My Review http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2008/aug/21/green-envy-local-stars-discoverys-project-earth/ Here is a profile of project engineer Jennifer Languell, which gives some insight into how she and the other experts were selected for the series. Green with envy: Local stars on Discovery’s Project Earth By VALLI FINNEY Thursday, August 21, 2008 FORT MYERS — Green. Jennifer Languell She likes green. Jennifer Languell knows how to speak green. Green building, that is. Languell is one of the “stars” of Discovery Channel’s new Project Earth series that premieres at 9 p.m. Friday night. The “Navy brat,” as she calls herself, landed in Fort Myers 18 years ago after graduating with advance degrees in civil engineering from the University of Florida where she also taught building construction and civil engineering. Some have questioned whether she is really a stand-up comedian because of her personality. Languell owns Trifecta Construction Solutions, a consulting firm specializing in helping people and companies go green when building or remodeling structures. She has worked with numerous companies throughout Florida including Collier Enterprises. Valerie Pike, a project manager for Collier Enterprises, has worked with Languell for almost a year planning the town of Big Cypress — a premier, green-certified development through the Florida Green Building Coalition. “Collier Enterprises’ experience with Dr. Languell is that she definitely knows what she is talking about,” Pike said. “One thing is for sure, a meeting with Dr. Languell is never boring. Dr. Languell is very organized and carries a wealth of knowledge in her head and in her rolling, designer briefcase.” Just more than a year ago, Languell had no clue she was going to be tapped as the engineer for the new show. Out of the green, er, blue, she received a telephone call on a Friday. The message: Be in New York on Monday for an audition. “I showed up and there were nine other people,” she said. “I had no idea what was going on.” The other people had scripts and other items used when an audition is taking place. They had already made it through a first round. Languell has a sense of humor that is readily apparent whenever someone meets her, so she took the audition in stride. “I thought, ‘Hey, no big deal. I will do whatever they want me to do,’ ” she said. On Day 2, they separated the 10 into two groups: a “loud and obnoxious” group and a shy group. She was in the “loud and obnoxious” group. “Literally, within less than two weeks, I had been notified I got the job and within a week, I was on a plane to Greenland,” she said. Not only did she travel to Greenland, but also to France, England, Norway, Japan, South Africa, Canada and the Dominican Republic. The job also took her to Hawaii and Alaska. One of the boats used during filming was purchased in LaBelle and retrofitted on Florida’s east coast. “I initially was told there would be five months of filming and we would be in and out, a week here, a week there,” Languell said. Her thoughts of shows such as this: the people would go back to a cushy motel room. But that wasn’t the case. “There was no luxury,” she said. “Not a lot of the places have indoor plumbing.” And, there were the times spent in a tent — in the cold. But, she was quick to add, “I can’t say it was all outdoorsy, there was plenty of scientific and lab work.” Because she owns Trifecta, she was able — with the help of technology — to be away from her business for days on end and she wasn’t going to miss the opportunity of a lifetime. Anyone who has seen the Discovery series “Planet Earth,” will relate to the new show. “This was supposed to be before ‘Planet Earth,’ ” Languell said. “But the powers that be at Discovery said, ‘Well, we should do ‘Planet Earth’ first and make people fall in love with the Earth before we teach them.’ ” The premise of the new show is to show people how to help themselves and the planet, and to take ideas — no matter how crazy they may sound — by leading scientists and see if those theories work. For instance, Languell and the show’s other two team members will research whether the melting of Greenland’s glaciers can be stopped by covering its land in protective blankets to seeing if they can reforest barren areas by planting thousands of saplings via a mass aerial drop. Another facet of the show is to determine if the theories are viable or economically feasible in case “we ever get to the point where we do need to do something to intervene on a worldwide basis. Let’s make sure they work before we are in that position,” Languell said. “There’s definitely things we should be doing right now.” For instance, she said, when people remodel their homes, they can use “green” materials, or if they need to replace a roof, they can upgrade to use solar power. “The reality is, we’re not trying to save the planet,” she said. “If it wanted to, the planet could get rid of us in a heartbeat. We are trying to save our way of life.” E-mail Valli Finney at [EMAIL PROTECTED] © Naples News --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
<<inline: 060329BZ-LanguellJennifer_t220.jpg>>
